Dive Brief:
- Microsoft announced it purchased Genee, an AI-powered scheduling tool.
- Microsoft said it plans to add Genee to Office 365. The company has been working hard to improve Office 365's appeal to enterprise users.
- Genee works with calendar apps to make arranging meetings easier.
Dive Insight:
Genee uses natural language processing to “read” emails and then automatically sends out a meeting request on the user’s behalf, working in a manner similar to chatbots, according to a company blog.
Competition has been hot in the cloud-based workplace productivity area as more businesses move away from out-of-the-box workplace productivity software to online-based tools. Competition between Microsoft's Office 365 and Google for Work, in particular, has been fierce.
“As we continue to build new Office 365 productivity capabilities and services our customers value, I’m confident the Genee team will help us further our ambition to bring intelligence into every digital experience,” Rajesh Jha, CVP of Outlook and Office 365 wrote in a company blog.
